Author's notes:

Writing this stream-of-consciousness serial story has two key similarities to game-mastering a tabletop role-playing game.

By-the-by, the tabletop role-playing game has little semblance to online role-playing networks such as Everquest or World of Warcraft. For more information, please see this Wikipedia article on role-playing games or email me.

The first similarity is the rough start. At the start of a role-playing game campaign, the players have just conceived and described their characters, but those alter-egos fit the players like pre-altered suits.

The game-master has just done the same with the game setting. Everything is flat and sketchy, stiff and cardboard. There is a plot, or more usually the barest beginnings of one, but it does not engage the player characters, and seems mostly cliched.

Likewise for this serial story. I had a seduction, and a hint of paranormal powers. That's all I wanted to commit to that first day. The characters are either blank ciphers, or archetypes from central-casting, your choice.

Either way, they certainly didn't live.

The second similarity is the characters coming to life, and the dynamic interplay with the plots. Over time, in a good game, the players' alter-egos get infused with personality. This is the 'role' in role-playing. They are no longer merely a collection of numbers, facts and notes.

At the same time, the game-master's plot is coming into being. Since the game started, the sessions have left plot threads, created bonding experiences, introduced conventions and characters unique to this setting.

Same here. At this point, Sian has her own personality, conveyed almost entirely in dialogue. So does Evander and Marc. Callan is sadly lacking, but this is also the case with many movies: actors, even those of great note, seek villainous roles because they're meatier, less constrained. For an example, look at Ben Kingsley, OBE.

And the plot has taken off. As I wrote, I constrained myself in small ways. Do the powers work this way, does the world work that way. I also opened doors to interesting places, left loose plot threads. Remember, I'm making the story up as I go along. I started out sputtering and wavering, and now I have a star to steer by.

(Those of you just joining here, start with Callan and Sian 1)



"But, could you?" Sian's eyes flashed.

"Could I? Could I what?"

"Could you just use your power and get me to go to bed with you?"

Callan nodded slowly. "Over time, yes."

"Days?"

"Minutes, actually. Overcoming the heart's unseen walls is more difficult than doing the same with the mind's more obvious ones. I can't just make a Suggestion to you like I did with your friend there." He kept his voice level, but add just a bit of emphasis on the last sentence.

"Evander. Evander MacAllister."

"Evander." He held up a hand, one finger extended. "Now, let's look at something. You don't trust me, but you just told me his name. Is that wise?"

"Now that you mention it, no."

"Are you on your guard with me?"

"What do you think?"

"So, I rest my case." He lowered his hand and extended it to her, palm up.

"Huh?"

"You said it was a bad idea, you said you were on guard, yet you still did it. What could have caused that?"

"Well, I was drugged and had a really bad night, so I could blame that."

"Yes, you could." Callan nodded and let the pause hang heavy in the air.

Sian sighed. "You didn't."

"Not without a great deal of forethought. As I said, I don't do this lightly."

"So you didn't seduce me."

"Not the way you first thought."

"And you didn't drug me." She climbed up to the table to sit beside her, but his eyes looked at the ground where she recently stood.

"No, I value the mind too much to trust chemicals to run rampant over them."

"So, all that's left is ..."

"I thought we covered this. All me, all you, remember?"

"No, the other guy. Marc. From the bank. He's not a hallucination."

Callan shook his head slowly. "Oh, no, he's quite real. And he most definitely did seduce you in the way you feared."

"But why me?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"You're kidding right? I believe you can make me dance like a chicken if you wanted to. I believe some tall, dark and handsome stranger mind-controlled me and took me to some nightclub to dance until morning." Her words were flat, no hint of incredulity in them.

Callan turned slowly to look at her. Her gaze didn't waver. She still addressed that spot on the ground.

"I believe all that. And you say I won't believe why this is all happening to me?" she asked the trodden grass.

"Wait. He took you to a nightclub? Can you tell me more?"

"A dance club. Techno and house and stuff. I don't know it's name. I don't know where it is. I was ... uh, distracted the way there. And back."

"Distracted... Was it sex? With Marc?"

"You don't ask... yes, it was. The whole time I was with him, it was. Sex. All the time."

"Including at the club." His voice made clear this was not a question. "And there was some sort of sexual competition."

"How'd you... yes. There was, but not in the open, not like a show. How did you know that?"

"It's what goes on at The Mephistopheles Society, little one."

She turned to face him. "What did you call me?"

He regarded her, eyes tight. "That's quite a bruise you have there." He touched her chin, turned her head so it was more clearly in the light. His Will he marshaled and directed through that one digit. Then he let her head turn back to him.

She touched her cheek. "It doesn't hurt anymore. It's gone, isn't it? The bruise?"

He nodded, inhaled deeply, and said, "You startled when I called you 'little one.' It's what Marcarius called you, yes?"

She nodded.

He exhaled. His voice went low, but he put no Power in it. His throat was tight, dry. "It's a symbolic laying of a claim on you. Basically, as far as the Awakened Circle is concerned, you're his thrall."

She gaped, the fire in her eyes extinguished. "But... but, why me?"

His voice a whisper, Callan said, "For your orgasm, pet. So often, so deep."